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Brańszczyk

(Ostrow Mazowiecka District, Bialystok Province)

Translated by Meir Garbarz Gover

Brańszczyk is situated on the right bank of the river Bug, about 10 km east of Wyszkow. Documents of the 1400's mention it as a privately owned village. In the 1800's the village was adjacent to the nearby estate. The 1921 census showed 731 residents in Brańszczyk, out of those 140 Jews.

On October 1939 the occupying German Wermact ordered the eviction of all Branszczyk Jews to Wyszkow and to the east. Brańszczyk Jews were exterminated together with the Jews in Eastern Poland.

The forests nearby Brańszczyk were used as hiding place for Partisan units. Jews served on those Units. Some of them were caught by the Germans and local Polish Police and were executed.

On January 1943 the Germans caught and murdered, near Brańszczyk, In the Forester Station in Bielawy 15 Jews and 5 Soviet soldiers.

Jewish Partisans of the Mordechaj Anilewicz Partisan Unit were operating in this Wyszkow area. The last of them were murdered by Armija Krajowa Polish nationals in a battle held in the Wyszkow forest on April 1944. In this battle they murdered Ignaci Podolski, commander of one of the three squads of the Anilewicz Unit.